


Haunted

by Scrunchles



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: He's a dick, It's not a story focus but it's there, Jamie's the haunted doll, Mako has a pet pig, Mako/Mei, Priscilla Rutledge, haunted doll au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 03:56:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20960066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrunchles/pseuds/Scrunchles
Summary: Strange things keep happening in Mako's house.  Food rots quickly, his pet pig won't leave her favorite room, and now there's knocking noises and whispers... he's tried very hard to ignore it all, but he can only go so many nights without sleep before he has to admit to himself that the doll he just bought is haunted and sage isn't going to help him.





	Haunted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [one_irradiated_muppet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_irradiated_muppet/gifts).

> This was written for Muppet. She's the sweetest and let me follow my dreams when I pitched a silly AU in our discord. Thank you bb, this was a lot of fun and developed better than I could have hoped.
> 
> As a bit of a warning, there is some Mei/Mako in here but Jamie's not a fan of that and it's not the focus of the fic.

Strapped to the back of Mako’s bike, Priscilla rattles the front gate of her carrier, eager to taste the crisp autumn air. He doesn’t take her out as often as he should. She loves parks and pet stores, but Mako is so busy between working a full time job and recovering from working a full time job that at the end of the day he just doesn’t have the energy to do more than cuddle her on the couch or roll her on her back across the living room rug.

Mako pulls to a stop at the veterinary office and Prissy starts jostling around eagerly in her carrier as soon as she hears the kickstand click down. She’s a very smart little potbellied pig and Mako tells her that softly as he opens her carrier and pulls her out. 

She drags at the leash, leading Mako to the front door and then it’s Mako’s turn to drag her once she gets a whiff of all the animals inside. He scoops her up after a few pulls of the leash, making sure to support her legs so that she doesn’t get scared, and she pouts in his arms, snuffling up at him unhappily as they approach the front desk.

“We’re here to see Mei— Dr. Zhou,” Mako corrects himself.

“She has a bit of a wait,” the young man says, glancing at two clipboards in front of him. 

“We can wait,” Mako assures him. 

“Name?”

“Prissy Rutledge.”

Priscilla doesn’t like to wait. She roots around and snorts at Mako constantly, nervous and excited, he supposes. While they wait, Mako occupies his time not spent wrangling his baby girl browsing his favorite LGBT gothic doll group, “After Annabelle.” He has a massive collection himself at home and it’s almost an addiction at this point. 

Most collectors he knows buy online because brick and mortar stores are dying out ever since the internet and custom dolls came on the scene, and the most recent thread has a link to a “Haunted Doll: 18 inch Bisque Angel.” 

She’s beautifully crafted with blonde, flawless curls that the description assures is real human hair. It talks about how she manifests as white orbs and is a friendly and sweet friend who will bring good luck.

A bit boring, but a good concept. That is one thing Mako doesn’t have— a “haunted” doll. He scratches Prissy’s belly with one hand and carefully types in a search on his favorite doll purchasing site.

_Haunted doll_.

More sweet cherubic faces with candied stories and kind words take up pages of results. 

Mako scrolls down the seller page slowly, taking in each description and picture carefully. They make outrageous claims like “VERY ACTIVE SPIRIT” or “TWO SPIRITS ONE VESSEL HALF PRICE NEED LOVING HOME.”

He rolls his eyes and keeps scrolling until he sees a properly formatted title that catches his eye. It’s just been uploaded with a minimum bid of $5. 

_“Haunted Blonde Boy Doll Late 1800s Macabre Gothic Very Active Very Haunted_.”

The photo stages the doll as creepy and shows patchy blonde hair and orange eyes with highly defined, painted features. Mako clicks to learn more and sees the bid go up to $7. _Fierce competition._

The doll is certainly macabre. It’s made out of bisque and has black lines criss-crossing his mouth as if it is meant to resemble being sewn shut. It looks suspiciously like marker and it makes him cringe physically. The doll also looks strangely thin for the time period that the doll is claiming to be from. “Late 1800s” Mako’s ass. Most of the bisque dolls he’s seen have very plump faces and are meant to look cute for children. This doll is anything but cute with his narrow features and thickly painted eyebrows. His mouth is twisted in a creepy grin too, to top it all off. Must have been a custom job if the time period’s right but why the low price?

_I have tried to fix his hair multiple times but he _ _ **DOES NOT WANT IT FIXED** _ _. Please allow him to remain unchanged, he does not like clothing or hair treatments._

Mako snorts and keeps scrolling. There are a few more detailed pictures of his face and glass eyes. The way they catch the light is unbelievable and looks photoshopped as hell.

_These _ _ **are** _ _ his original eyes! A gorgeous color and he knows! The “threads” on his mouth must stay intact or he will become so active he is impossible to live with!! Jamie is a very excitable spirit and enjoys playing games and pranks. Ouija boards are his favorite method of communication!_

_WARNING!!! DO NOT LEAVE HIM ALONE IN A ROOM WITH MATCHES!!!!_

Mako scrolls through some more bullshit about how Jamie’s clothes and body and blah blah blah more bullshit claims about some of the activity that has been seen around him.

There are some higher resolution photos at the end and he has to admit the sharp black suit is well made and the doll overall looks like it would fit the aesthetic of his black room. His weird eyes are probably from brown pigment fading over time.

“Prissy Rutledge,” a soft, lightly accented voice calls.

Mako places a bid for $15 and closes the page, not really worried about whether he would win or not. If it’s meant to be, then it’s meant to be.

He gathers up Prissy in his arms and stands. “Hey,” he says, putting forth the effort to smile a bit. 

Mei smiles brightly at him and steps forward to let Prissy smell her hands. “Hi, Prissy!” Mei coos. “Have you been a good piggy?” she asks.

“The best,” Mako assures her.

Mei turns her attention back to Mako and rests her hand on his arm to lead them back. “I told you she would be a good girl.”

“You did,” Mako agrees. 

Once they’re in the examination room, Mei shifts up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I had a great time last Saturday.”

“Me too,” Mako says, watching carefully as Mei takes Prissy from him and begins checking her general health. “I, uh… finished Prissy’s pink room on Sunday. Can I make you breakfast this weekend?”

“That sounds great!” Mei says, glancing up from Prissy to smile at him. She runs her hands along Prissy’s back and around beneath her belly. “She’s doing great, still gaining weight, though she’s slowed down.”

“I’ve been giving her less scraps,” Mako says.

Mei scratches Prissy’s belly and laughs when her little tail wags wildly. She loves attention. “That’s a good thing,” Mei says. “She’s a princess but don’t spoil her too much.”

Mako reaches out to pet Prissy under the chin and then scoops her up into his arms as Mei turns away and starts writing on her chart. 

“I’m happy to see you both,” Mei says, giving Prissy’s snout a little kiss. “And I’ll be by for breakfast on Saturday morning,” Mei says, leaning up to kiss Mako’s cheek again.

Mako smiles and nods. “Yeah, I’ll make pancakes with homemade whip.” It was Mei’s favorite breakfast when she was studying in America. Straightforward and sweet, just like her.

“That sounds great!” Mei says, her cheeks flushing. “I’m surprised you remembered…”

Mako smiles and shifts toward the door. “I’ll see you then,” Mako says.

“Yeah. Bye bye, Prissy!” 

Mako waves Prissy’s foot at Mei before leaving and going back to the receptionist to check out. He gets a small handful of dog treats for Prissy while she’s in her carrier and then heads home.

The doll arrives with his arm twisted erratically and it slips free from the joint when he picks the doll up. Mako may have bid on him two more times because, quite frankly, the haunted look to the doll was too attractive to pass up. Now he’s wishing he left well enough alone. There is a note inside the box with him, a generic, “_Thank you for your purchase! You and_,” _Jamie_ is written neatly in a blank spot left in the typeface, “_will have great fun together!!!_”

Mako snorts and tosses the card back in the box before lifting the doll out and attempting to see what’s wrong with his arm. As he picks him up, the doll's right leg hangs limply in his pant leg and Mako lets out a frustrated growl.

As he tugs lightly at the arm and leg to see how fucked up the doll’s stringing is, Mako notices that there’s something written on the back of the card:

“_Don’t worry about his leg and arm, he unstrings them when there is too much stress. If you keep putting them back and ease him into his environment, he will allow them to stay put!_”

Creepy. It eases some of the annoyed tension Mako feels, but he probably just needs to be restrung. He’s so thin that Mako’s not sure if he can manage it with the tools he has, but he’ll give it a go.

Mako gently tests the joints with a frown before he puts the doll back in the box and leaves it on his desk as he moves through the house to get himself and Priscilla, some dinner. 

He munches on half of an apple, making sure that his little princess gets the bigger piece, then makes an actual meal for them, giving her half a head of lettuce and using the other half to make himself a salad to go with his steak and potatoes. He eats in the kitchen with Priscilla snuffling at his feet, waiting for him to drop bits of seasoned potato or lettuce with dressing on it as a treat. He tries not to, but she wags her tail when she finds something tasty on the floor and it’s just _so cute_.

After dinner, Mako returns to his desk to examine Jamie more closely and half expects him not to be in the box—which is stupid, but he truely is a creepy, creepy doll. His arm and leg joints appear to have fixed themselves, as they aren’t dangling awkwardly within his clothing.

Priscilla follows him in and lies between his feet as he sits in his computer chair. He absently rubs her belly with his heel and takes a closer look at the doll. 

It looks like someone tried to glue hair to his wig cap and to the bare head beneath it multiple times. The way that the hair is gone gives the doll a stark widow’s peak. Mako carefully removes the wig cap and cleans the glue from Jamie’s bare scalp before putting the wig back on and sitting him up against his half-full coffee mug from this morning. He certainly has an… air to him. A creepy one. Maybe it’s just the “stitches.” He dips a cotton swab in cleaner and carefully cleans off the marks from the thin, pale doll lips. Okay, maybe he’s creepier without them. His face is so incredibly lifelike that Mako has a hard time not expecting it to blink at him or raise one of those thickly painted eyebrows to accent the smirk on his lips.

As Mako and the doll sit and stare each other down, Mako’s unsettled feeling increases with each passing moment. Suddenly, the doll’s arm shifts with no prompting and Priscilla squeals like Mako just rolled the chair onto her and bolts out the door of Mako’s study. Startled, he pushes away from his desk to go check on her. He hadn’t been moving when she squealed; he’s not sure what could have happened. Maybe he had jumped without realizing it?

Priscilla is in the pink room, hiding in the little princess castle with her nose in the corner. Pastel and white dressed and flowered dolls line the shelves at the tops of the room as well as little piggy figurines he’s bought because they remind him of Priscilla.

Mako kneels carefully and peers into the castle door. “Prissy, I’m sorry,” he coos.

Prissy snorts and shivers and Mako smells pee and notices that she must have relieved herself from fear or stress. Mako carefully reaches in and picks her up, avoiding trailing her feet through it with a sigh. “What’s wrong, honey?” he asks as he checks her for sore feet, tail or obvious bruising. She slowly calms down in his arms and eventually takes to rooting in the space between his arm and stomach indicating he should be petting her if she’s in his lap.

Mako obliges and carefully stands while scratching her and takes her to the roomy kennel in his bedroom. There’s a potty pad inside just in case and he gives her a little treat to make her feel better about being kenneled for the moment. 

Once he has Prissy set up, he moves to clean the pee in the pink room and sprinkles some odor absorber as well. He gives Prissy another treat and she seems… fine. Regardless, Mako doesn’t want her out if she’s going to get scared and piss in the house again, so he takes her out to the backyard and then puts her back in the kennel with some toys and a few extra handfuls of grass hay to munch on during the night. 

The next morning, Mako’s keys aren’t in the bowl. He looks all over the places he usually goes when he gets home. After he stopped to get his package at the post office yesterday, he came home and went straight to his study— he specifically remembers hearing the clink of keys in the glass bowl, now that he thinks about it. 

Mako turns the whole house upside down looking for his fucking keys and nearly grabs his spares because he’s already ten minutes late when he sees a glint on the table next to the bowl. Mako lets out a frustrated huff and grabs the keys before running out the door. He’s fucking _blind_ apparently.

When Mako gets home, he lets Prissy inside and cuddles with her on the couch while watching tv. He nearly drifts off into a nap when he smells… something. It’s got a chemical tang to it, like fried electrical wiring. Mako shifts Prissy out of his lap and stands to investigate. He checks the kitchen first, but doesn’t smell or see anything. As he moves toward the hall into the rest of the house, the smell takes on a seared ozone feeling that makes Mako’s molars buzz uncomfortably. He checks his study, as it’s the only other room with a bunch of electronics and the smell gets stronger. He checks the surge strip his computer is plugged into and then where the strip connects to the wall and the plug connects to his desktop tower.

There’s nothing wrong. While he’s down there, he hears a clunk and then feels cold, two-day-old coffee spill down his lower back and asscrack, prompting a frustrated noise from his throat. Why the _fuck_ would that happen?

He draws back and looks at the upturned coffee cup with a scowl before grabbing it and taking it to the kitchen. He brings a wet towel back with him and cleans the spilled coffee from the desk and the bottom of his keyboard. He picks up the doll he had left on the desk to clean under it, but other than his arm and leg dangling limply, the doll is in perfect condition, not a spot of coffee to be seen. Mako sets him away from the mess on a table he uses specifically for doll repair and shrugs it off as luck. He’s going to have to attempt to restring him later. 

Once the coffee is cleaned up, Mako grabs a treat for Prissy and calls for her. Prissy’s hooves make her usual tip-tapping noise as she prances down the hall toward Mako’s study. She stops at the door, though, and grunts at him.

Mako holds the treat down closer to her level, but Prissy refuses to come through the door. “Is this about what happened yesterday?” Mako moves to crouch beside Prissy and pets her, trying to tempt her back into the room with the treat. “It won’t happen again, sweetie, I’ll be careful,” he promises.

Prissy sticks out her snout for the treat but won’t take a step into the room.

Mako sighs and gives her the treat anyway. She’ll adjust in her own time. She knows he didn’t mean it—whatever _it_ was.

Mako returns to his desk and pulls his chair over to work on getting Jamie’s arm and leg fixed. The hook appears to still be in decent condition—probably replaced by the previous owner— Mako pulls out a roll of elastic and draws out a length to measure against the doll’s height. By the time Mako finishes stringing Jamie, it’s late. His narrow joint holes are hell to work with, just as Mako expected.

Mako will put him up in the black room and reorganize what’s already there to fit him aesthetically. Jamie can be a creepy coachman for the skeleton drawn carriage. He should fit right in.

That night, Mako has an unsettling dream, but he doesn’t remember what it was about. Just that it was unpleasant and he doesn’t want to repeat it for the next two nights, but it happens anyway.

He remembers snapshots of it on the second and third nights. His mouth aches and he can’t speak because something is in his mouth. It tastes like iron and copper. Blood and rust. 

Mako pulls at his hair, wrenching at it to prove he’s still alive, still able to feel anything aside from the steady ache in his jaw and the cold stone beneath his bare feet.

Mako awakens on Saturday morning wheezing and coughing. He grabs for his inhaler and feels his hand knock something off of his bedside table. He hears the familiar sound of something breakable hitting the floor and he looks over the edge of the bed to see Jamie lying face down on the hardwood.

Fuck.

He doesn’t remember bringing that thing in here, but then he’s been so tired the last few days, he doesn’t remember much of anything. Priscilla isn’t in the room— he must have forgotten to close the door.

Mako picks Jamie up to examine him and lets out a sigh of relief when he only sees a scratch on his cheek. Mako licks his thumb and carefully rubs at it and the mark clears away.

“Bloody troublemaker,” he says without any real malice. He carries the doll out of his room and nearly turns to put it in the black room, but then his leg dislocates. Mako curses and rolls his eyes as he bends to pick the limb up. It slips through his fingers twice before he finally grabs it and pulls it up to take a closer look. The hook is still attached, the string must have come loose. After Mako made three knots in it. 

Mako furrows his brow and takes a hesitant step toward his study. He _knows_ he strung the doll properly, he’s done it a hundred times.

Mako checks the arm joint to reassure himself and it’s not loose. Maybe he just did the arms right and forgot to double check—

_Ping!_

Mako turns to look at the end of the hall and sees something rolling across the floor. He steps closer and sees a small silver pin slowly rolling forward, stopping, rolling forward, stopping, rolling forward…

Mako stares as the pin makes its way forward until it stops at his bare foot. It must have come from Jamie’s clothing or something. Or maybe it was hidden in his wig, but why was it in the hall? Where had it dropped from? He nudges it lightly, feeling like he’s in a fever dream and needs to wake up. It rolls away from him and makes a circle before stopping.

Maybe his floor is uneven. Maybe a draft. Maybe…

The doorbell rings and Mako startles from considering the pin. He walks to the entryway and then walks back into the living room to set Jamie down on the couch’s side table. He runs his hand through his hair and then opens the door without checking the peephole. 

“Hello!” Mei chirps before her entire face goes red.

Mako smiles at her chipper greeting before his mouth dips into a concerned frown at her blush. “What— oh _fuck_.” He forgot to put on a shirt. “Sorry,” he says, ducking back into his house and hurrying to his room to get a shirt and—frankly—actual pants while he’s there. “Come in—“ he calls over his shoulder. “I just woke up and… uh, it’s just been a weird morning.”

“It’s okay. I kind of figured you might be running late since you haven’t answered my texts,” Mei says lightly.

Mako rubs the sleep from his eyes, splashes water on his face and runs his hands through his hair a few more times before coming back out into the living room.

Mei isn’t in the living room; Mako can hear her cooing from the pink room. He grabs Prissy’s breakfast of piggy pellets before following the sounds of giddy sweetness. 

“There she is,” Mako says warmly. 

“She was shivering when I came in,” Mei tells Mako, her lips pursed in concern.

“She’s been uncomfortable lately,” he admits, frowning as he sits on the edge of one of the pink and flower printed throne-like chairs and hands Mei the bowl of piggy pellets. “I may bring her in for another check up.”

“Are you using anything new?” Mei asks.

“What?” Mako grunts.

“Chemicals or food?” Mei suggests as Prissy eagerly eats a handful of pellets from her flat palm.

“No.”

“Is there anything different in the neighborhood? Power lines or construction? Noise?”

“Nope, nope and no.”

Mei hums and gets another handful of food. Prissy eagerly dives into her small palm, scattering pellets into the carpet which she then roots for when Mei refuses to give her another handful. “I don’t know, then. Maybe she’s not feeling emotionally fulfilled?” she asks, gently feeling Prissy’s belly and chest to see if she can feel any anomalies.

Mako laughs. “I give her lots of attention and love.”

Mei smiles and pets Prissy’s back. “I know that and I’m glad that she has such a good home,” she tells him.

“Me too.”

Silence settles in and Mako clears his throat as his stomach twists with hunger. “I think I owe you pancakes?” he says. 

“Oh, yes. You do.” Mei agrees, shifting Prissy out of her lap and moving to stand. “I can help—“

“No, no, you two look comfortable right there,” Mako points out. “I got it,” he says as he turns to leave. 

He can hear Mei murmuring softly to Prissy as he moves toward the kitchen, but he can’t make out what she’s saying now that he’s deeper in the house.

Mako makes two plates of pancakes and then gets started on the toppings. He pulls some blueberries and strawberries out of the fridge and pops one of the blueberries in his mouth only for it to dissolve into a musty mush between his tongue and his palate. He spits it out in the skin quickly and gags at the overwhelming taste of putrid fruit. He picks through a few more of the blueberries, but they’re all the same. Disgusting. He cuts a strawberry in half and the flesh is a deep, sour red. Mako tosses both plastic boxes of fruit into the trash and gets the cream out to at least make the homemade whipped cream he promised. He gets a single whiff of the milk and nearly gags again. What the fuck is wrong with his groceries? 

Mako checks the date on the cream and he should still have a week. Maybe someone at the store put it back in the fridge after it was set on a shelf and curdled. He checks his fridge to ensure that it’s working properly and it’s cooling just fine. 

Mako turns on the sink and upends the milk before tossing the container in the recycling. 

“The pancakes smell great!” Mei says as she enters the kitchen. 

“Yeah,” Mako says, grabbing maple syrup from the cabinet. He wipes dust from the top before setting it on the counter. “Fruit and cream didn’t pan out, syrup okay?”

“The fruit and cream was the whole reason I came!” Mei teases, putting a light dollop of syrup on her pancakes and hopping up onto one of the barstools to eat at the cabinet.

“We both know you came here for my pig,” Mako replies.

Mei giggles softly and begins eating her pancakes when Mako hands her a fork. They talk lightly as they eat, about their respective jobs and the weather, but not too much. Mako likes that about Mei, she enjoys socializing and talking but not so much that it’s annoying. She doesn’t do it to fill the silence, it’s so that she can learn about the person she’s with and that’s something Mako can appreciate.

They sit on the couch after pancakes and Mei leans into Mako’s side, resting her head on his shoulder. Mako puts his arm behind her and his jaw brushes her temple. He turns his head and gets a whiff of her hair. She smells a mellow kind of sweet. Mei turns toward him and her hand touches his jaw, encourages his lips down to touch her own.

Mako kisses Mei gently, but it intensifies quickly when she presses closer. The kiss is fine at first, but soon it’s just… _loud_. There’s a sharp lip-smacking sound and humming and Mako is pretty sure that it’s not him, but Mei is sweet and adorable and he is willing to put up with excessively loud smooching if it means making her happy and continuing to date her.

The kiss only goes on for a few more minutes before Mei presses her hands against Mako’s chest firmly and he pulls back with a small smile.

“Mako, I don’t want to be rude and I do enjoy kissing you, but… can you be a little quieter?” Mei asks.

Mako raises a brow and his smile drops to a half-frown. “I wasn’t making any noise.”

Mei rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “Okay. I understand if you’re sensitive about it but you can’t be ignorant of it,” she says.

Mako shrugs and tries to calm his pride. “Okay, I’m sorry,” he says even though it was _definitely_ not him. “Do you want to keep going?” he asks.

Mei shifts to sit on Mako’s thighs and presses her lips to Mako’s once again. Mako’s hands settle on her waist to steady her and he kisses her eagerly—but quietly.

Mei, on the other hand, makes the same noises. Mako ignores them once again, the lip-smacking and sucking sounds, but Mei pulls back after a few minutes and stands. 

“I’m just going to go if you aren’t going to take this seriously,” Mei tells him.

Mako’s eyebrows pull together and he stands to follow her. “What do you mean? I _am _serious.“ It’s one of his defining traits. _Why so serious?_ is the question he has been asked most in his life. Barely in front of, _oath, how did you get so damn big?!_

Mei whirls on him and mimicks the mouth noises that they both apparently heard while they kissed, but neither made. “It is not funny! Call me when you have grown up!”

Mako takes a breath to reply and it dies in his lungs as she stomps away. “Wait—“ He moves to follow her, but feels something sharp in the ball of his foot. “Fuck—ow!” Mako continues to half-hop forward but Mei doesn’t hesitate or turn around. He can’t figure out what to say by the time she slams his own door in his face.

Mako smacks his forehead against the wood and groans. His chest hurts from disappointment and his foot aches because there’s something in his sole. 

Mako moves to sit on the ottoman and runs his fingers along the bottom of his foot. He feels a solid, small piece of metal in the ball of his foot. What the actual fuck could that be? 

Mako pulls tenderly on it to see how deep it goes and it’s well and truly stuck. “Fuck,” he repeats before getting up and limping to his study to get a pair of pliers. One quick jerk is all it will take. The pliers slip twice and it hurts like hell. The third time’s the charm and Mako grabs a tissue to try and stem the bleeding. Beneath his own cursing, he swears he can hear laughter. He ignores it as blood rushes through his ears. He bandages his foot before looking at the bloody piece of metal on his desk.

It’s the pin that had rolled down the hall.

Lots of things race through Mako’s head. _How? When? Where?_ It didn’t make sense that it had been on its end for him to step on, and it was in the hall when he last saw it…

Mako rubs the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. There’s absolutely no fucking way that the pin should have made it into the entryway—his floors aren’t that uneven and they’re completely smooth; he installed them himself… no, he’s just tired and stressed about Mei. 

They’ve been going on little dates for months now and he was hoping that this breakfast would help things move forward a bit more. Maybe he’s just psyching himself out because he hasn’t been in a relationship for a while. It wouldn’t be the first time.

When Mako turns around, he sees Jamie sitting on the side table with his smarmy little smile. That’s what he needs. A distraction. Mako carefully grabs Jamie and his leg. If he uses a stand with a supportive base for the feet, it’s unlikely to come off the string again.

He carefully rehooks the leg and fits Jamie into the stand before carrying him to the black room. He smooths Jamie’s jacket and pants down on the way.

The room is dark even with the light on. The walls are papered with a dark gray fabric that is striped with a color just a hint more purple than gray and can only be discerned after staring at it for a long period of time. This room has shelves around the top similar to the ones in the pink room except instead of white with tiara molding, they’re a dark brown lacquer that is nearly black and the design on the front is a large quatrefoil in the middle with progressively smaller ones that lead down to tiny bevels. Besides the shelves at the top—which are filled with black, dark red, purple and gray dressed dolls and accessories— there are tables and bookshelves with the same varnish and motifs on them lining the room so that every surface is fairly covered with little scenes. The only gap in the shelves of dolls is a space where the wall is taken up by a large, antique ouija board. The planchette hangs from a leather thong over the “GOOD BYE.”

Mako sets Jamie on one of the few tables with room on it for another doll while he shifts the dolls and accessories on one of the larger bookshelves to create a scene for him. He sits on a chair to rest his aching foot as he frames a scene around a black carriage with deep red and purple trim. It’s pulled by two skeletal horses and has bats and spiderwebs accenting the wheels, lamps and body. Mako arranges a beautiful lady with similar proportions—more slender than most of the other dolls—and a similar color palate to Jamie’s shirt and suit. 

Once the scene is set, Mako puts Jamie next to the carriage and lifts his arm to hold the door for his passenger. Perfect. 

Mako sits and inspects his work for a moment before reaching for Jamie and ruffling his patchy hair so that it sticks up and looks wilder. Somehow it pulls it together with his bright eyes and dapper suit, a little contrast in his hair being out of place is just the touch he needed.

Mako moves toward the door to get his phone so that he can take a photo for his LGBT gothic doll group, “After Annabelle,” but he stops when he hears a soft shifting noise. Mako stops in his tracks and the shifting continues, so it’s not him. If the fucking doll is moving or something he’s going to fucking lose his fucking goddamned mind.

Mako slowly turns around and the doll isn’t moving. The shifting intensifies and it blends into itself until it sounds like a whisper that’s just far enough away that Mako can’t understand what it’s saying. He turns his head just a little more and sees the planchette of the ouija board rapidly moving from letter to letter, so fast that even if Mako were standing right in front of it, there’s no way he would be able to decipher it.

_Nope._

That’s fucking _creepy as shit_. 

“Stop,” Mako breathes, watching the planchette fly across the antique board faster and faster.

“_Stop_!” Mako snaps firmly.

The planchette drops to hang by its string, swinging like a pendulum and slowly, slowly it comes to a stop on “GOOD BYE.”

Mako watches the board for a long moment before he takes the doll he’d just perfectly positioned and walks out of the room and his house and into the shed out back. He places the doll in the shed and then closes and locks the door using both locks—something he doesn’t usually do— then, he walks back inside and tries to forget what just happened.

Prissy is at the door of her pink room when he walks back in and searches for her. She grunts at him and then turns around—probably to hide in her castle again. Mako considers joining her, but instead he walks to his office, turning on the light and two floor lamps before he closes the door.

The evening is closing. He’s concerned that he’ll be kept up for yet another night. How many nights can he go without sleep before he dies?

He considers checking into a hotel for a night or patching up things with an ex before he shakes his head and rubs the bridge of his nose. No, he’s not desperate or scared he just… needs to understand what the fuck is happening.

He opens the site he ordered the doll from and sends the seller a DM. 

_PiggyBank: The doll you sold me is haunted._

_EfItsNotBroke: Yes. I do not lie in my postings. Are you two getting along?_

_PiggyBank: Not exactly._

_EfItsNotBroke: You removed the stitches._

_PiggyBank: Yep._

_EfItsNotBroke: I recommend putting them back._

_PiggyBank: They don’t have to be magic?_

_EfItsNotBroke: I use sharpie but an off-brand should work. It’s the symbolism of his last moments, not the material itself._

Mako lets that sink in for a long moment. Does he really want to do it if it’s such a shitty moment for the ghost? He shakes his head and looks around his desk for a marker. He knows he bought some a week or so go but he can’t find any of the ten or twenty permanent markers he should have littered around the study. 

_EfItsNotBroke: He likes to hide things, by the way. Good luck. No refunds._

Mako tries to message them again, but the message returned is that the user's settings prohibit direct messaging. Fucking great.

Mako leans back in his chair and rubs his face with his hands. No. Nonono. This isn’t happening. It’s not real. It’s… Mako hears a whisper through the door, like the shifting of sand. Oh no.

Mako stands and steps out into the hall. The sound is coming from the black room and the door is cracked. He steps back from the door and shakes his head. He doesn’t want this to be happening. 

He put it in the locked fucking shed. He moves to the back door and looks out across the back yard. The padlock is still on the door.

Mako numbly walks back to the black room and opens the door. 

The ouija board is going crazy again. And the pale, smirking doll is lying beneath it with only one arm and leg attached. Mako slams the door. Hecan’t deny that it’s a thing anymore. His doll is haunted, he’s not imagining it, and the ghost is _an asshole_.

How can he get rid of it? 

Toss it in the bin? No, it’ll just come back. 

Have it blessed? Ew. Mako would almost rather have a haunted doll than set foot in a church. 

Put it in a bucket of holy water? Maybe.

Sell it to some other poor dumb asshole with a tenner?

Mako paces to the pink room as he thinks, knowing he needs to get Prissy. He lets her out and feeds her before attempting to get her to sleep in his room—he doesn’t want to be alone, but she keeps trying to squirm out of his arms toward the pink room. She appears to feel safe there. Maybe Mako should sleep in there too.

He lets her go and closes the door as an extra precaution before going to his own room. Mako sleeps fitfully.

He doesn’t have the same creepy dream again, but his sleep isn’t more restful. He hovers between wakefulness and rest until he can’t possibly stay in his bed any longer, so at 4am, Mako starts researching how to get rid of fucking ghosts.

Ghosts usually stick around for “unfinished business” or a missing object. Complete the unfinished business or find the object of their focus…

He can also burn sage, that seems simple.

Sprinkle salt to cleanse the room—maybe he’ll fill a shoebox with it and put the doll inside.

Religious symbols, Latin chanting, telling the ghost firmly to fuck off… He doesn’t really want to talk to it. It’s unsettling and creepy.

Mako settles on reapplying the marker and saging the house for starters.

On his way home from work, he buys another permanent marker, a large container of salt and a bottle of sage from the local market. Once he’s home, Mako tries to figure how how one bundles sage and soon realizes that he’s gotten the wrong kind. He’s not leaving the house again, though.

Mako approaches the black room with his container of salt and a marker. He pauses outside and listens intently. There’s a sound from inside, like a low moaning. Mako furrows his brow and nearly loses his nerve, but when he grips the door handle, the noise stops, so he pushes forward and walks in. 

The entire room has been rearranged. 

The dolls are stood on the tables, all organized by color and the scenes Mako had spent hours across months painfully cultivating no longer exist. There are some dolls arranged in the middle of the room in a pentagram, their hair fanned out behind them and their arms straight by their sides, eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling even though some of them have rocker eyes that should be closed. 

The ouija board moves. As soon as he steps in, the planchette snaps against the board like a magnet and quickly begins moving across the letters, too fast for Mako to comprehend. Creepy, creepy_, creepy._

Mako keeps as much distance between himself and the board as possible and scans for Jamie, but he doesn’t see the doll.

He begins searching through the dolls on the tables, setting down the salt and permanent marker and trying to find Jamie through the mess. At the back of the first table, Mako finds a doll stripped of her dress and it prompts a snort from him. Clever little brat. He’s more careful when weeding through the dolls, paying attention to the faces instead of just looking for a suit among dresses.

When Mako finally finds Jamie, he’s in a fancy purple and black baroque dress. His expression somehow strikes Mako as shit-eating and he rolls his eyes before reaching for the marker he had brought with him— it’s gone.

Mako groans and sets Jamie away from the other dolls before he starts searching through the pile for the marker. The planchette moves faster and faster and eventually Mako realizes that it’s making a single motion, circling the “NO” on the board. 

Once Mako notices what the board is doing, it starts moving at light speed again.

“Stop it!” Mako snaps.

The planchette drops and swings like a pendulum from its leather tie.

Mako picks up the container of salt and the planchette snaps back onto the board. He sets it back down and the planchette drops again.

“Give me the marker back,” he demands.

The planchette snaps to “NO” and then stays attached to the board.

“Why are you haunting me?”

The planchette flies across the board and Mako feels himself get irritated again. “Jesus fuck— _stop_.” The planchette drops moving, but it’s still clearly resting against the board.

Mako walks over and rests his hand on it to keep it from moving too fast. “Alright, why are you haunting me?”

“DOLL.”

Mako purses his lips at the hurried jerking of the planchette beneath his fingers, like it’s trying to escape from him. “Why are you haunting the doll?”

The planchette tries to zip off with force a few times, but ultimately shakily spells out: “TRAPPED.”

Mako raises a brow at that and then huffs. Sucks for him, but he doesn’t have to be a douche about it. “Stop interacting with things.”

“BORED.” It spells the word over and over and over again until Mako puts pressure on the planchette to stop it completely.

“It’s boring for you, but you’re acting like an ass,” Mako tells him.

The planchette doesn’t move. Mako feels something icy cold touch his hand, like narrow fingers sliding up to his wrist and arm. He shivers and jerks his hand back.

The planchette jitters and then spells out, “SORRY,” in shaky, barely controlled movements.

Markers or not, Mako is through with this bullshit. He grabs the container of salt and sprinkles it across the carpet, breaking the doll pentacle with his foot as an extra “fuck you” to the ghost.

The planchette flies across the board again and then very angrily drops so hard that it snaps the leather tie and falls to the carpet. Mako walks over and coats it with salt before walking out of the room and emptying the rest in front of the door.

Prissy is in the kitchen snuffling the floor. Mako realizes he hasn’t fed her yet and crouches down to pet her and apologize. Once he feels a little better, he stands and fixes Prissy a big bowl of pellets. Mako doesn’t trust anything in his fridge anymore after the blueberry incident and so he orders in take out while Prissy eats and he watches TV. He might actually get some quality sleep tonight now that he’s taken care of his ghost problem. He’ll just never go into the black room again. Easy.

Though some of his favorite dolls are still in there…

Mako loses track of the show he’s watching and instead worries about what Jamie might do to the thousands of dollars of collectibles in the room. He had been trying to get rid of him, but from what Mako could tell, he just made him weaker and angrier.

Mako looks at his list of ways to deal with the ghost again.

Talking to it again is out of the question. Mako still feels his stomach twisting and his skin prickles with goosebumps just at the thought of possibly feeling ice cold _ghost _fingers on his arm again. Mako barely tolerates living beings touching his shoulder or shaking his hand. Ghost fingers are absolutely off limits.

For now, Mako is going to relax with his princess. The salt will probably buy him time until tomorrow. 

Mako has a full night of sleep for the first time in nearly a week. It feels so good that he calls out of work and rolls back over to just enjoy the peace of deep, uninterrupted—

There’s a tapping noise. Prissy is snoring somewhere in the room, so it’s not her. 

“Stop,” Mako mumbles, pulling his pillow over his head and clenching his jaw tightly. _Go away_. He feels like a child trying to hide from something, but he just wants a few more minutes of hiding from his problem and having dreams where he doesn’t taste blood or feel like he’s losing his mind.

Maybe he is. Maybe there’s no ghost at all.

Prissy squeals. Mako sits up in time to see her race for the door. She clips the door jamb on her way out and skids across the hardwood before regaining traction and bolting for the pink room. Mako can see a bit of shine behind her on the hardwood and a bit of darker patch on the rug in his room. He rubs his eyes and flops back onto the bed.

“Stop making my pig piss herself!” he snaps. 

No answer.

“Move something if you understand me.”

Mako feels his covers shift like someone just sat at the foot of his bed. _Nope_.

“Get the fuck off my bed!” Mako kicks out but doesn’t hit anything. The weight disappears regardless. Mako snaps his leg back under the covers like it might protect him and glares around his room. 

“I’m going to fucking sage the shit out of this fucking house,” he growls. Silence. Then, one of the pictures of Prissy on the wall falls and the glass shatters.

Mako throws his covers off and pulls on pants. He’s going to find some _bundled sage_ this time. That ghost is toast.

Mako sages the whole house starting with his room and moving throughout. He also brings boxes into the black room to pack away his dolls so that they aren’t trapped in a room with a psychopathic ghost doll.

The planchette is mysteriously attached to the ouija board on the wall again, as if it had never been pulled off. It rocks slowly as he packs, but Mako keeps his eyes forward and ignores the soft whisper of the wool-buffered wood shifting back and forth against the antique spirit board. He puts the dolls in the shed out back and leaves the room empty aside from accessories and Jamie, still in a dress and without his leg and arm.

Mako didn’t find his permanent marker during his cleaning out the dolls, but he has plans to get another and keep it in his hand until he can get close enough to seal off that damned doll’s mouth. Whatever that will fucking do—he’s desperate.

Signs of the ghost keep popping up. The dreams intensify. Mako sleeps with his keys in his hand so that he can actually get out the door in the mornings. He buys a cross for every wall and the next morning, every one of them is face down on the ground, but he got a full night of sleep again, so…

Mako puts them back on the wall in the hope he’ll get another night of good sleep, but he’s awakened by his fire alarms going off at 12am. The crosses are on the floor again and nothing’s on fire. He takes the alarms down and removes the batteries in an effort to get a few more hours of sleep before work, but they go off again at 3am, seemingly powered by absofuckinglutely nothing. 

“Stop!” Mako snaps, and the house falls silent. “Jesus fucking Christ, you’re _so annoying._”

The alarm on his bed stand chirps in an odd pattern that strikes him as a cackle. 

Mako rolls his eyes and flips off the chirping alarm before flopping back on his bed. It stops after a few seconds and Mako is allowed to sleep until about five minutes before his wake up alarm goes off. “Dick!” Mako yells after looking at his clock. 

The alarms all around the house chorus in that strange cackling chirp.

Mako puts the alarms out in the shed. More sage, more salt. Every time he brings home a permanent marker, the damned thing disappears even if it doesn’t leave his pocket. If he had the tool, he would bore holes through the porcelain and thread the asshole’s lips “closed” himself. 

But he doesn’t.

Weeks pass. It’s weird how quickly Mako gets used to having the ghost. He knows when it comes into the room because Prissy immediately leaves. She doesn’t seem as scared of it, more like just annoyed that it’s invading her space. If Mako wants to have some quiet time with her, it has to be in the pink room. He’s moved his mattress into the brightly painted room and if he can ignore the knocking noises, he can get a pretty decent night of sleep. If five hours can be considered decent. 

He barely acknowledges the ghost when he does leave the pink room. His phone hasn’t rung in a week, it just goes straight to voicemail. He has two untouched voicemails from Mei, but he doesn’t have the fortitude to actually listen to them. There seems to be a persistent smell of something burning. It comes and goes, but just when Mako feels himself relaxing, he’ll get a whiff of singed something. Wires or hair. Something acrid and terrible. He doesn’t dare to actually light a candle, but he sprays deodorizer and it makes it tolerable. 

When he passes the mirror in his front hall, he sees a pale, narrow shadow following him. Sometimes if he turns fast enough, he can see a flash of orange eyes or thin lips twisted into a sneer. He sees him more and more often, in a shadow or reflection. It gets so bad that he thinks he sees him in crowds or closing elevators. It feels like it’s building to something. Maybe it’s just Mako’s lack of sleep or social activity— which is both caused by and fueling his paranoia in equal measure.

He can’t keep living like this. It’s not fair to Prissy or himself. He doesn’t even know how long he’s had the doll anymore, just that they’re both miserable and if he wants fresh fruits or vegetables, he has to eat them before they enter the house and he hasn’t been so anxious and tired since that one weekend in college when he had to study for nearly 48 hours straight.

This ghost has to go. Or just calm the fuck down. Mako makes sure that Prissy is comfortable and fed in her room before he steps out and carefully approaches the black room. He passes his own open bedroom door and sees that the furniture has been rearranged. His massive, hardwood bed has been turned a full ninety-degrees and a pair of his pants and a shirt have been laid out on the box spring. He sees a flash of silk and lace beside the clothing and he swears he can hear a soft moaning sound in the room. Mako steps over the threshold to see that the doll is in his room, lying next to his clothing. He shudders as the moaning gets louder— he lets out a sigh of relief when he realizes that it’s not sexual. The ghost is speaking. It goes silent at his sigh and the air changes, it feels like there’s less of it, then he hears tapping on the wall, crisp and present. He wants Mako to go into the black room.

Mako turns around, but he smells the sharp scent of permanent marker on the air and when he turns back around, he sees an open marker on the floor, spinning rapidly. There is writing on the wall now.

“TAKE ME WITH YOU.”

Mako swallows and walks over to pick up the doll. He pauses at the marker, which has slowed its spinning, but it zips away across the floor to clatter against the wall beneath his wardrobe. 

“I wasn’t going to do it,” he says. It’s only a half lie. He definitely thought about it, but he’s been tortured so much that he thinks he’s developing Stockholm syndrome or traumatic bonding or whatever they call it. He doesn’t love the ghost but he can’t really remember how it felt to be without him. Was there really a time where he slept until he wasn’t tired anymore and could expect all of his groceries to stay good until he ate them all?

Mako carries the doll into the black room and looks around before dragging one of the darkly lacquered chairs over to set him on and then he drags a second one over for himself. Mako sits down across from the doll and crosses his arms. 

This feels moderately more sane than just standing in front of a ouija board talking to himself. He hears a snort at the door and turns his head to see Prissy looking in at him.

Mako sighs and turns his attention back to the doll—which is now sitting up straighter, with his missing right leg crossed over his left knee and his left hand is resting on his knees pointedly. Mako feels a cold shiver of dread before he opens his mouth and says, “I want to make a deal.”


End file.
